Quick action by new Delta group

Friday

Feb 26, 2010 at 12:01 AMFeb 26, 2010 at 12:29 AM

A leaner, locally leaning Delta Protection Commission made its debut Thursday night by refusing a request by a high-ranking appointee of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to delay action on a management plan for the estuary.

Alex Breitler

A leaner, locally leaning Delta Protection Commission made its debut Thursday night by refusing a request by a high-ranking appointee of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to delay action on a management plan for the estuary.

In short, the commission wasted no time flexing its local muscle.

Last fall's legislative water deal included paring down the little-known commission from 23 members to 15. Gone now are some of the state officials who previously sat at the table; the commission is now dominated by county supervisors and city council members, including San Joaquin's Larry Ruhstaller and Stockton's Susan Eggman, and by farmers.

Also new to the commission is state Secretary for Resources Lester Snow, who asked Thursday night for a month or two to review a management plan that the previous commission had drafted over the past three years.

The city and county officials - who have been largely at odds with the Schwarzenegger administration over last year's legislation and the governor's vision for the future of the Delta - shot down Snow's request.

"I don't want to work for three years on another plan," Solano County Supervisor Michael Reagan said. "Motion without outcome is not my style."

Snow had said his request was simple.

"I'm not asking that people vote no" on the plan, he said. "It's simply to defer the vote."

The commission said no.

It was an example of how the new, locally dominated commission might assert itself in years to come. But the commission will by no means have overriding authority on Delta dealings.

Snow revealed Thursday night that appointments to the higher-level Delta Stewardship Council will be announced as soon as next week. That council also will write a plan for the estuary; while the locally dominated commission can make suggestions or recommendations, it's the council that will have the final say.

Critics have complained that the council may have only one Delta representative - the chairman of the Delta Protection Commission, Sacramento County Supervisor Don Nottoli, who was named to the position Thursday night. Four more council members will be appointed by Schwarzenegger and two more by the Legislature. Opponents say the larger number of Schwarzenegger appointees will allow him to extend his policy influence in the Delta - including the push for a peripheral canal or tunnel - long after he leaves office.

Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, said the Delta Protection Commission will remain "a true voice of the Delta." The new commission has new responsibilities, including studying a potential expansion of the Delta's legally defined inner core - the Primary Zone, where development is restricted.

It also must prepare a plan for the economic sustainability of the Delta.

Executive Director Linda Fiack said Schwarzenegger's financing proposal would expand the commission's budget from less than $500,000 a year to $2.4 million so that it can accomplish this work.

"We may be declining from 23 to 15 members, but really it's enhancing" the commission, she said.

Michael Scriven, a fifth-generation Terminous Tract farmer who sits on the commission, said it's still unclear exactly how the commission will work with the council and yet a third body, a Delta conservancy that will oversee environmental restoration.

"We're sort of in the dark as to how we are going to fit in," he said before Thursday's meeting.

As for the plan approved Thursday, Nottoli said before the vote that it may be "the only real document we have to work with in the Delta for some time." It was the subject of much debate as it was drafted.

Snow said he recognized the work that had been done and was just asking for "a little bit of time."

The vote against him was 9-3.

Snow said afterward that he agrees the commission's role in the future will be key and said its members will be able to work together despite coming from very different backgrounds.

"I think the Delta Protection Commission is extremely important - it has been in the past and will be much more in the future," he said.